Crimespotting is an interactive map of crimes in San Francisco and Oakland, and a tool for understanding crime in cities.

If you hear sirens in your neighborhood, you should know why. Crimespotting makes this possible in San Francisco and Oakland with interactive maps, e-mail updates, and RSS feeds of crimes in areas that you care about.

We believe that civic data should be exposed to the public in a more open way. With these maps, Stamen is hoping to inspire local governments to use this data visualization model for the public release of many different kinds of data: tree plantings, new schools, applications for liquor licenses, and any other information that matters to people who live in neighborhoods. We welcome inquiries from municipalities and other interested parties who seek to provide their data to the public in a more transparent and sharable manner.

Public information should be public, right?

The idea that crime information can and should be accessed in a variety of ways is crucial to the project. Interactive maps are a core part of this project, but we also want people to be able to consume the information in whatever way they find most effective. To this end the site provides a series of update pages, links to individual crimes, and custom location searches for more focused investigation.

Crimes can also be viewed by type - in the image below, thefts are foregrounded from the other crime types in a neighborhood. The interface allows for dynamic control over the time shown in the view, so changes in density can be easily understood.